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The Reading Room: Old News, No News

Denise: These days we seem to have more time for reading. Or may be we make it? J’s now ‘retired’ from Civil Engineering. (He always rolls his eyes when he says retired. And he insists that Civil Engineering be capitalized!) He does now have more discretion over what he does and when. If he wants to roll eyes and capitalize he’s got the time and liberty to do so. Or read books. That goes for me too: the succession of operations over recent years, and the need for more rest, has gfited me the time and rekindled the inclination to read – and look forward to doing so.

Before we started crofting, before we started our holiday letting business, before we started the Hebridean Woolshed, before we started our own civil engineering consultancy, back in those days when J (and at times both of us) had paid employment and a workplace to go to, we were both avid readers. We had fixed hours of work, and outside those hours time was our own. From when we first met in Portsmouth in the 70s, we’d always be reading something. Sometimes together – one reading a chapter aloud, then swapping over. Fiction and non-fiction alike. Current affairs, biographies, classics. These days, with both of us now with a pile of books by our chairs or on our bedside cabinets, we’re more likely of an evening to dismiss the TV option and sit in front of the fire reading – and talking.

We’ve found our tastes have changed. Just as our taste in domestic architecture has shifted away from traditional to modern, from pine to plain, so too has our taste in reading. We’re now more likely to read modern literature as the classics. We’re now much more interested in real-life stories – particularly of alternative living, or moving to a foreign country. We’re more interested in today and tomorrow, and both the problems and the promise of each. Our reading is extremely varied. Viz …

Recently I read two of three books I’ve bought, all by Marlena de Blasi –

Marlena de Blasi: A Thousand Days in Tuscany

Marlena de Blasi: The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club

Marlena de Blasi: The Lady in The Plazzo

I bought the first of these a couple of months ago in Stornoway, on my way to hospital. I wasn’t there long, but had plenty of time to get deeply into a book. I became immersed in the author’s world, one of daily life at a gentle pace, centred on food: and where better to be centred for such a subject, than Italy? She’s a very good writer, certainly for the genre, and I enjoyed the book so much I didn’t wait to finish it before ordering the other two on Amazon. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed to discover that Marlena de Blasi is in fact a prolific writer, and I do suspect that if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. I’ve read two of the three: I’ve just the Thursday Night Supper Club to read – some time when the mood takes me.

Just now, I’m reading –

A Croft in the Hills, by Katherine Stewart

This was first published in 1960, instantly became a ‘classic’ and has scarcely been out of print since. Mine’s a 1962 Country Book Club edition, unfortunately missing the colourful dust jacket of the first edition, but nice condition.

This book makes me think of The Fat of The Land by John Seymour, published a year later. Both are of the same Back to the Land genre, and both have a joyful innocence about them – one which belies the never-ending hard work of the life they espoused, and certainly belie the undeniable fact that the tide of economics was sweeping away small-scale family farms, and only the young idealists, some hippies, some not, some joining together in communes, some going it alone, would forge a new take on small-scale living on the land under the banner of ‘self-sufficiency’. This is a lovely book, very much of its time. Thanks Jacalyn for the recommendation!

Jonathan’s recent reading seems to follow the principle of ‘pot luck’: I’ll hand over to him to finish this post.

Jonathan:

It was me that ordered A Croft in the Hills, but Denise snaffled it: when she’s finished (and if it’s not too shrivelled up from her sucking all the goodness out of it) it’ll be back in my reading pile! Not so sure about the Marlena de Blasi books: they look suspiciously like those paperbacks with overtly girly covers, but for more mature women of more sophisticated interests.

The Best of From Our Own Correspondent. BBC – Edited by Geoff Spink.

Denise and I are both fans of BBC Radio Four’s long-running programme From Our Own Correspondent. So when I came across this book, ex public library but in excellent condition, in an island ‘thrift shop’, I snapped it up!

I won’t attempt to describe the programme, other than it is Journalism, capitalized [Denise: like Civil Engineering!?]. The best of it too. And that makes this book the best of the best!! This is Volume 4 in a series of five or six published in the early 1990s. These days this would be published only as a podcast – and indeed that’s exactly how I normally ‘consume’ present-day editions of the programme. Reading a book like this is a bit like coming across a stash of old newspapers: not just a pile kept by for lighting fires, but selected editions bearing banner headlines of major world events. There’s a freshness from the writing that transports you to those times, enabling you to picture events with a vividness that comes only from first-hand reporting, and that’s what Journalism (capitalized) is! Perhaps there’s also an appeal in old news that’s ‘safe news’: no need to get anxious over world events of nearly 25 years ago! This book covers the period 1992-1993, when the world’s attention was focussed on the Balkan wars (the Journalists write of Srebrenica ominously, but who could have foreseen the horrors that followed?) ; of Armenia ruined by earthquakes and armies ; of Georgia at war with itself and with Russia ; of the then-current cadre of petty despots across Africa, and of an eastern Europe emerging from behind the iron curtain, but blinded by the bright lights of freedom. It’s been good to rediscover the early 1990s, and find how much things have changed in the past quarter century, and at the same time how little has changed – especially in the West Bank. What goes around comes around. I found this book by chance. I’ve enjoyed reading it, but I won’t be looking out for any others in the series (they can be got cheaply enough on ebay). It’s more than enough to keep up with the podcasts!

Barbara Pym: Quartet in Autumn

Barbara Pym

This featured on one of Hogglestock‘s ‘shelf-by-shelf’ posts. His description of it immediately made me think of Anita Brookner, another English authoress and of the same era – both productive in the mid 20thC. Thomas of Hogglestock is certainly a fan of both, and as I’d read several of Brookner’s novels, about 15-20 years ago, I thought I ought to give this one – particularly recommended by Thomas – a read. I ordered it on Amazon, and dived in as soon as I got it. What surprised me about this book was that, despite it featuring only four characters, all weak – and none of them prominent, and there being no plot as such, just a witnessing of the day-by-day progress through the last months of their working lives, and first of retirement, and with no dramatic events, ‘no news’, and everything so gently and kindly portrayed – not a harsh word by or about any one or anything … what surprised me was that this was a real page-turner. Difficult to explain why – but you really do start to care about these four people, who – truth be told – are the very people about whom society does not seem to care, and perhaps does not even notice. And that, indeed, is why the book was thought so highly of that it was nominated for the 1977 Booker Prize.

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The Reading Room: Old News, No News — 6 Comments

I’ve enjoyed this post as I’m a passionate bookworm and always welcome other ideas and reviews. Reading is so important and a great way to immerse yourself in another life, world, thinking. At the moment I’m reading Ian McEwans Nutshell. Wish I could write like him!

So pleased to hear your reference (and recommendation) to Barbara Pym! I’ve read all of them once, and they are treasures indeed, sitting on our bookshelves somewhere. I must get them down for a reread soon …

I like the way both of you write reviews–you provide enough information to explain your like (or dislike) of the book but, more importantly, to allow me to decide whether it would appeal to me, whether it did to you or not!

[D] Yes, Sandra, Tangye’s books are also of the same era, and inspired by the same post-WWII back-to-the-land movement. We’ve been reading them for many years, and have a few autographed by the man himself. The sort of books we don’t part with!

It’s interesting how our tastes change over time isn’t it. I found myself in a familiar rut for many years until joining a book club and latterly reading book blogs. My eyes were opened to all I was missing!

I have a couple of Marlena de Blasi’s books, including 1000 Days and including at least one unread. You’ve reminded me. Something to enjoy in the New Year, when the weather’s dreary and I can dream of the Tuscan sun perhaps. A Croft in the Hills reminds me of the Minack series by Derek Tangye which I’ve recently started: essentially Cornish crofting in the sixties. And the Barbara Pym sounds a joy. I read several Anita Brookner’s many years ago. I always found them quietly haunting: books that stayed with me.

Thanks for this nice little distraction; much more interesting and enjoyable than organising the online shopping order!